“Against Diagnosis” A Poem by G. Epstein

griffin epstein is a non-binary settler working as an educator and community-engaged researcher in Toronto (Dish with One Spoon territory). Their first chapbook will be released with Frog Hollow Press in late 2021. Their poetry has appeared in Grain, The Maynard and Plenitude. They also play music and make videogames.

Artwork by C. Sofia

Against Diagnosis

experts say my head is a saltine: full of holes
good for kids

as if i was pulled from the deck of threats
different but complete

tell me to stop playing
walk like i have wiring

in my gut
between my ears

and wish to be cured of it

experts say: eat this or that
make a map of your needs

give yourself a special name
grab the new heroics while you can

wait for applause like clinking glass

ii.

i refuse to disown my sickness
i am mother to her

cover her with fresh love
turned up like soil

in these years of Sad Time and vitamins
i have learned to feed

her when she’s hungry
change her when she’s wet

see her
through cut paper

taped to the window of
the kindergarten class

no metaphor or signal
her very own being

not to be prefixed with blood or brain
or names she can’t understand

in her open palm i place
seeds and buttons

wait for her to notice

we are already standing
at the gates of ease

From the Editor:

We hope that readers receive In Parentheses as a medium through which the evolution of human thought can be appreciated, nurtured and precipitated. It will present a dynamo of artistic expression, journalism, informal analysis of our daily world, entertainment of ideas considered lofty and criticism of today’s popular culture. The featured content does not follow any specific ideology except for that of intellectual expansion of the masses.

Founded in late 2011, In Parentheses prides itself upon analysis of the current condition of intelligence in the minds of these young people, and building a hypothesis for one looming question: what comes after Post-Modernism?

The idea for this magazine stems from a simple conversation regarding the aforementioned question, which drew out the need to identify our generation’s place in literary history.

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In Parentheses Magazine (Volume 7, Issue 3) Winter 2022

By In Parentheses in IP Volume 7

32 pages, published 1/15/2022

The Winter 2022 issue of In Parentheses Literary Magazine. Published by In Parentheses (Volume 7, Issue32)

Author: Mr. Phillipe

Phillipe Martin Chatelain / @uptownvoice / Phillipe is the Managing Editor of In Parentheses. He is a poet from New York City with a Masters Degree in Poetry from The New School. He writes as someone in the tradition of the urban troubadour or the flaneur–wandering, taking notes. He believes that poetry of our generation has taken on a much more digital definition. Furthermore, it is important for New Modernist writers like those exhibited in In Parentheses Literary Magazine to assume the forms of media available in order to carry on the history of Sublime Art. His series taking shots alone was self-published in 2012-2015. The self-published collection FACETS (2019) is now available. View all posts by Mr. Phillipe